The Bitcoin revolution is only just beginning

Technology that backs up cryptocurrencies could also transform tax collection, benefits delivery and border control

The price of a Bitcoin has risen tenfold in ten months. Yet whether and when the bubble will burst is beside the point, which is that Bitcoin works. What I mean by this is that Bitcoin has proved that the blockchains technology behind cryptocurrencies is capable of doing what it was claimed it could: create an asset of limited supply and high security, like digital gold.

“Running non-stop for eight years, with almost no financial loss on the chain itself, [Bitcoin] is now in important ways the most reliable and secure financial network in the world,” writes the legal scholar and computer scientist Nick Szabo. This is likely to be a more enduring legacy than any burst bubbles or scandals over the use of cryptocurrencies…